Niko

So yesterday we finally reached 24 and there the market run out of buyers then a quick fall that went a point shy of 83, then buyers pushed up to 04 (50%) before giving up and forming a hinge above 93. At the time of the post buyers are attempting to a break to the upside but so far have been unable to get other buyers above 11. The last attempt of sellers failed at 601. In case buyers rush in at the open they will have to absorb whatever traders want to throw at them around 14, if they don't have any trouble with that then 24 could be interesting as the top of the TR for the last few days, if we manage to break above 24 then 58 is the level to watch. This could also be a failed attempt to go higher around the mean (04) and they could try lower. In that case they will have to deal with trapped sellers around 96, from there 83 and 65.

I think yesterday was a very positive one for me, not because I did not lose money, but because I manage to keep my focus and acknowledge the environment that led me to the conclusion that trading that was a mistake. For today, I will keep on pushing for my weekly objectives and avoid chop, if there is a trend day, just ride it.

Well, is 10:52 and I don't think anything of importance is gonna happen during the next 8 minutes so I will call it a day. My great call of the day was staying out, had I taken any trade it would have been scratched. The whole morning turned into a hinge that by the time of this post hasn't been broken. Perhaps the break will occur in the afternoon, but I wont be available by then, so good luck afternoon shift traders. I am attaching what I drew during the morning.

Seems like we got a crappy day with mean around 7.

I just re-read my weekly objectives so I dont lose track of them, today my focus on PA will increase, I will try to keep my cool all the way to 11:00, just breathe and exhale . Other thing I will avoid today is to trail the stop, it will remain wherever I place it and I will exit the trade with the close button, so as to retain control of the trade at all time.

Prepwork for today 052014 Looking at the larger picture we seem to be actually in the RET that comes with the test of the hinge apex (textbook stuff ) but in order for this to become a trend we need to break decisively above 24 or else we could end up in a TR in the daily. Zooming in to the hourly I see a TC in the making but not confirmed (it could just be bunnies) but the interesting part is that the UL of this TC pointed towards the congestion area of last week between 03-24 with a mean around 13 and that is where we are now. If we can exit the influence of 13 and break above 24, 57 and 700 seem important. If in the other hand they decide that this is way too expensive and start selling below 07, we will have to deal with 600, 580, and 65, and don't forget the 50%s. Now, focusing on the now, after yesterday morning traders have been feeling comfortable settling around 14, so far they have not been able to take prices below 07 and during the early morning buyers seem to have decided that 18 was too expensive turning this movement into a LH in the hourly

We were entering a very busy area at 85 from the 14th/15th (see the hourly chart). If price had moved sideways, I would have left it alone. But it instead made a swing high, and that continuation effort failed. Since the swing high also enabled me to draw a supply line, I shorted below that bar. As it turned out, price moved sideways anyway only at a level several points lower. But then it continued and the short was a wash anyway. Generally speaking, I favor getting out when the line is broken and price reverses. If it goes sideways, I stay in unless and until it drops out of the range it's creating. But getting out doesn't mean staying out. There are, for example, Dogs to be aware of. It's almost a mantra: DL breaks, look for the first retracement op for a short; SL breaks, look for the first retracement op for a long. If no such ops present themselves, trade the Dog. If that doesn't present itself either, then see how the sideways movement resolves itself, whether a range or a hinge and trade accordingly. Thanks

Ok, I replayed the day, and this is what I found: 1. In days like today not taking the REV makes all the difference, so I need to become competent in REVs, I will go into researching opening range REVs, when I have tried them in the past I might have been very demanding on cascading losing good opportunities and worst losing the records and therefore the knowledge. As I was performing an exercise on REVs that got no replies, I will turn into this REV research during this week. 2.Is the same entry I took in RT, no difference. 3. Here is a question, I am supposed to look for reasons to stay, according to my AMT analysis I was in a up TC the top of which was 10-12, that is why I avoided the short and awaited for a break of LSL before entering. What am I missing, I see that db pointed that short in his chart, so I am not sure when I need to sit on my hands and when I need to take the SLA entry. We were entering a very busy area at 85 from the 14th/15th (see the hourly chart). If price had moved sideways, I would have left it alone. But it instead made a swing high, and that continuation effort failed. Since the swing high also enabled me to draw a supply line, I shorted below that bar. As it turned out, price moved sideways anyway only at a level several points lower. But then it continued and the short was a wash anyway. Generally speaking, I favor getting out when the line is broken and price reverses. If it goes sideways, I stay in unless and until it drops out of the range it's creating. But getting out doesn't mean staying out. There are, for example, Dogs to be aware of. It's almost a mantra: DL breaks, look for the first retracement op for a short; SL breaks, look for the first retracement op for a long. If no such ops present themselves, trade the Dog. If that doesn't present itself either, then see how the sideways movement resolves itself, whether a range or a hinge and trade accordingly. Here I changed the exit, I just closed the trade as it failed to make a new LL below 88. 4. We were discussing a Dog in last Friday chart in the "if you ...." thread, is this not the same case that occurred there, the SL was broken but LSH held and price fell rapidly. 5. In RT I avoided this one as I saw it as inside a hinge (LH + HL), I still don't think I would have taken this one in RT. 6. This one I took, but I think I screwed up at the exit, and given that I was a BE for the day I just decided to stop pushing it as I saw it as dull. But a reentry and patience would have saved the day. 7. Reentry and patience is what this entry is all about, the market didn't go against my trade even 2 points and even if scratched the next RET (8) provided a "clean" entry. Lessons learned, not all days are runaway days where you can get your way before 10:30, some days require more patience but still provide good trades. It was a day of HLs and HHs and except for the giant RET around 10 (the one that was stopped at 50%) it was a very good trend day. I have to ditch the "deer in the headlight" mentality and start thinking about scratching out of inability to go higher or lower, not only because it went against my trade and hit my "exit". I need to learn to exit with the exit button, I guess exit A (red diamond) would have been different if I did not have a stop order parked in there.

Thanks, I am puzzled by long no 2. The first three longs are all options, the first being the best. They represent a reversal, a breakout, and a retracement, in that order. One could also scale-in in this manner. Thanks

I did not enter because I am not touching the market before the open and specially around the open. In this case, had I taken that trade given how far it went against the "trade" I would have scratched the trade. If it had happened I don't think I would have taken the next entry given the HH that ended up being the rejection of 70. But this is not the first time I have seen this occurring so something to consider for future trades. Given that I would "classify" the REJ at 70 as a REV I don't think I would have beat myself too hard about not taking it. Same as above. Last week one of the lessons I learned is that I was giving price too little room, most of my good entries ended up being bad trades because of the way I was scratching, what I am going to do this week is to give price more breathing room (no more than 2 points anyway) in order to observe PA in calm. The SL that I drew was the one I had drawn in RT, with the first "visible" RET in the 1 min, from where I fanned it in, but I did not act on the accelerated fanned line I did notice the hinge, but It was too late I was already in the trade and on my way to be SCR. As I said, I SCR, but I did not pay much attention to 57 at the time to be honest. As I said, I did not pay attention to it, and that was a mistake, as it was the negation of the long, perhaps I am still waiting like a deer in the headlights, and instead of acting fast and closing the trades on the failure to do what they are expected (in this case, break through 57) I just wait for price to go against me. No way, I am not ready for that yet. I did not draw a DL until I got a HH above 58. No, I would only allow price to go against me 2 points. At the time I knew I was at 50% and decided to act with the intention of SCR fast, but it moved faster than I expected it and I ended up with a full 2 point loss. Regarding things to do I will avoid trading 50%s after a trend Reverses, have not shown to be good places to enter. This has happened before, the failure to break the stride of the trend and a new "deep" RET above LSL, I am not really very comfortable around these entries but given that sellers were not interested even at LSL or below it buyers are still in control so a long is the way to go. I did not pay attention to 67 at the time, but it was the LSL before the open and the first swing high after it, it was the place where sellers decided it was too expensive after the open, so it seems to be important. No If not, why not? Well, there was no HH, therefore no trend just yet, we had congestion and trend as alternatives, and it ended up being congestion. I am exiting after the break but not at the break, I an giving price more room, at least to form a HL, LH, DT, DB or to break a LSL, LSH (the latter only occurs before the first on VREVs that are not that common according to my experience). I am trying to stay on the trades, but perhaps there is something important I am missing. Yes, I noted that in Hindsight, but in RT I had just hit my daily loss limit with my last SCR and was already out of the game for the day. If I miss an entry, and I realize that about 10 seconds after I miss it, I try to avoid feeling bad for missing out, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't, anyway I look for a new opportunity above the range that has been forming, if that doesn't occur then I think no more trading is the way to go. As I said before I did not pay attention to 67 at the moment, I think that is something I will include in my RT checklist from now on as it is definitely important. Yes, my structure is by no means robust, but I am working on it, I think I have to make more questions to myself in RT in order to join the dots and see the whole picture. Yes, this is very valuable advice, I tried it today as I just lost grasp of clarity of understanding. So I just avoided new trades.

Ok, so far so good, I managed to sit on my hands, and trade as required, I also spotted levels where I could have traded but did not. 1. After the open Buyers tried to break above 78 but were rapidly rejected, then sellers tried down but were also rejected around the MP at 71. The blue dot marks the place to take a REV, this is just for future reference. 2. Buyers proved they wanted it, but they rapidly gave up. 3. I marked this level because in RT I noticed how prices not only stalled at that level, but there was a very fast rejection to the downside. 4. As the uptrend faded and a LH was the RET after the break of DL a short was in place, but given that my rules call for patience and to wait for a break of LSL I held and only took the RET after that break. It was SCR after sellers failed to go below 88. 5. After trying higher and failing and pushing lower with strength I decided to take my chances around 50%, but that proved to be a mistake. We had a LH and a HL above 50% therefore a hinge. In hindsight looks like the way to go was to SAR this one, but in RT It just seemed like jumping inside a hinge apex, so... 6. The SL was broken, and a new RET formed then a long was called for, but at (7) 600 we had a climactic high and prices fell rapidly to take the LSL triggering my exit, It is very unfortunate that I sold 1 tick from the low, but I followed my rules and that is far more important for me. Given the dull action of the market so far I decided to call it a day and watch. At the time of the post I thing they will reach 612, so I will get back in a couple of hours (gotta leave now) to do replay of the session and write again how could I improve my trading today. Edit: I added a 20 tick chart that I currently keep in my private records, but I am gonna start posting now for my future reference. It is huge, so please don't get mad at me.

After finding buyers in Friday afternoon at the apex of the daily hinge they ran out of steam at 90 on sunday and fell below the 50% of the downmove from 624. (82). In the morning sellers also decided the 50% of the upswing from 43 was cheap enough and just an hour ago buyers also gave up on the 50% of the last downwave. Is like a 50% fair. So far they don't like it above 78 nor below 65, but we seem to be breaking out of a small TR between 75 and 78 with an MP at 76.5.

Well, a new week and new goals, the goal of this week is simple, let go of my trades and focus on price action, forget about your P&L even if you cant see it doesn't mean you cant do the math in your head, so just don't. Instead focus all your attention to read price action, to determine what traders are doing and thinking and trade accordingly, if you have problem with focus just draw a damn line and follow it, but don't get tangled on the line, but instead use it as a mean of focusing your attention to what is happening above or below the line. Remember that detecting chop is not that hard, they are either gonna try up or down at the start, once they fail in one direction they are gonna try the other, if they fail in that as well you have an opening range, and an opening range is a RANGE so remember you don't trade inside ranges, you are not ready for that and the last two weeks proved that, so just don't. Once they define where they want to go, join them and remember that some of them will make a couple of points and quit triggering a RET, that is not the moment to panic, but the moment to hold your guns, that is the market telling you if they want the movement or not so wait for the RET to resolve before acting, that will put you in a position to deal with any nonsense that you end up making if you do it, but if you can avoid doing stupidities, just do.

Thank you, I will work on improving my reviews next week.

This is what I came up with regarding entries. I am not sure about the first short, but given that DL was broken and buyers failed to hold the HH seemed like the failure was the RET. It is very unfortunate that I did not manage to see this in RT, lets see if I can do a better job next week.

Well, you had a great day.

I am just gonna send you my login and password on choppy days

Ok, this is the last day of my initial live experiment, 2 weeks 3 contracts, 500 USD daily loss. Did not meet my "financial goal" but managed to stay above water, sort of mixed feelings, but a last some observations on real behavior with real money. In the first days, it was all fear, almost trembling before placing the orders and after the entry fear was still there making me exit early on my good trades and creating even more feelings of frustration. As I moved through the first week I worked on improving my ability to let my profits run, something I barely trained while in sim (I focused a lot on entries and scratches). I managed to do that in a consistent way only until yesterday and it proved to be the way to go. And that was after running the first week in replay and noticing the huge differences in P&L between sitting in my hands and overcomplicating the system. Today, I faced once again a tougher environment and got stopped out enough times to hit my daily loss limit again. Regarding today´s trades: 1. Traders had decided that down was the way to go, so a short at the first RET was taken at first it went down, but it was rapidly rejected and SCR. 2. But just after the SCR nothing happened it started falling again calling for a reentry, but in this case it moved fast against me triggering a second SCR. 3. LSH stayed untouched and it started to fall again so a new reentry, at first I thought this was the trend I was looking for , but as soon as we crossed the ONL buying started pouring in and got SCR as well. 4. Once again my trade was exited just before prices started to fall again so a reentry was placed, but it was rapidly SCR as well. 5. As the stride of the trend was broken, and a RET in the opposite direction appeared I aimed for a Long but it failed rapidly triggering a SCR. 6. The failure to go up and down formed a hinge, at first they tried down and failed, and then after breaking above 58 I took the 1st ret, but I failed to acknowledge that it was at 50% (trading against the mean) and it was rapidly rejected triggering the last SCR. Still a great deal of road to travel, before I can call myself competent in this dealings of trading, but I feel I just managed to move up a step. From my perspective, the things I need to consider now in order to improve next week. 1. Once a trade works, just leave it alone. 2. Spot the mean and avoid trading against it. If you are in the opposite side of the range and the mean is points away you might consider a trade, but not against the mean. 3. Look for reentry alternatives to the one you are using 4. Train REVs in replay, find what makes the successful ones different from the unsuccessful ones.

Prepwork 051614 After 11 traders settled around 51, after reaching the LL of the daily hinge. Attempted to break up but found equilibrium again around 66. So far they have not been able to find anymore trades below 51 nor above 67. The overall trend still downsloped, but if buyers show up above 68 a change in direction could occur. The first thing buyers would have to deal with in case they decided value is above current levels is 71, above that, there is not much to halt the rise all the way to 600. If sellers decide to unload under 71 then it could be a little struggled all the way to 40, below that level we have to deal with 30, 18 and 500. As always price can just cut through my "levels" like a hot knife in butter so only act upon this information if RT PA tells you that the trend is changing. As I said before I am not gonna trade REVs, but if I was I would limit them to those that occurred around 41,51 and 71 I just read Bern´s prep and realized that we are also at the apex of the daily hinge, so we could be in the middle of a test of this level before heading upwards, if this test fails then they will look for trades on the downside and if that test is as deep as the one on the upside we could be looking for 480.

I am not sure I uderstand what you mean.

Db, in the last short why did you wait to enter the short, my entry was supposed to trigger at a higher price (58.25), but I had my doubts given the inability of sellers to go under 54.25, at the time I couldt help to think I was in the middle of a TR, but I just took it and SCR, but I should have missed something that you saw. The hinge. Thanks at the time did not see it as a hinge but as a LH, after a DL break. That's legit. Wouldn't have made any difference, tho.

Well, today I felt much better, I forgot about multiple exits and focused on Price action, still avoided REVs as I will need more practice before taking them. 1. At the open the downward stride was broken and a HL was defined so a long was taken, but it failed rapidly just above the LSH so I decided to SCR the trade. This could have also been a good place to SAR but only in hindsight as at the moment my thinking was that sellers had tried already 2 times without much success below 90 so I better waited for that level to be broken and wait for the first ret. My entry was rapidly scratched and I made an operational mistake failing to trail the entry and entering 1 point below the entry level. But after my scratch buyers rapidly gave up and prices started to sell again, this formed another RET and an opportunity to enter. Around 10:00 there was a strong rejection that made me think about how I was reacting during the last week, and just following procedure I decided to sit in my hands, by then the worst that could happen was a BE day and the opportunities of a downtrend were good enough to allow Price some wiggle room. From this level we already had a "settled trend" to ride and my objective was to be able to reach 55. 2.As the trend ended I took the entry at the close of the trade, but it rapidly failed triggering a SCR. 3. Given that the new uptrend ended fast way below 50% and that I had some money still in the bank I decided to take the next short that appeared but it did not go anywhere and was rapidly SCR. Given that they tried up and failed and down and failed I decided to call it a day. (given the time of day)

Prepwork 051514 The overall trend is still down, but so far buyers have proved they are interested above 83, at the moment seems like they will be looking for trades below 90, but it could be just an exploration. If they manage to take prices lower (below 83) then the level to pay attention to on the downtrend would be 55 and from there 30. If 83 holds then they will have to break the downtrend and take prices above 07 or else this could just be another day of congestion.

You did much better than me . Great to see you posting here.

Then I will have to rethink exits, actually is the only part that we never discussed in depth and I just stuck with automatic "setups" to exit. LSs, I definitely do not consider those things now regarding exits, so more work to do. Same as before. Last week has been an example of this as most of my scratches ended up being good trades, but I did not have a strategy to take advantage of this, nor I am able to execute TDTDB so far. As always, a better way to analyze it than just close because of a break of last swing. Let me see how can I put all of this to work in RT. Thanks